Hanna Pioneer Village & Museum

Look for the sign on Highway #9 in Hanna, take a turn north on Pioneer Trail and in few moments arrive. Off to your right, it’s a group of historic buildings marking the Hanna Pioneer Village & Museum, a great place to spend a few hours. Ahead in this post, it’s a sneak-a-peek tour to kindle your curiosity and once this pandemic storm has subsided you’re all invited down to see it for yourself*. It’s place to reconnect with the past and learn how things we’re done in a time far removed, all the while being budget friendly.

To those regular readers of this website (all twelve of you), you know we have a thing for small town museums. While not all make an appearance on this website we patronize many and out of this have learned so much about history. We’ve got an insatiable appetite and once you get the bug so might you. It’s not really a bad place to be, head in the clouds, forever lost in time and with discovery at every turn.

The museum has roots going back to the 1960s and from simple beginnings has grown to what you see present day. There’s building after building stuffed full of artifacts of all kinds and no matter your taste there’s something interesting to see.

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In one building, it’s vintage hair salon and its strange contraption. That perm thing: they’d attach those heating elements to your hair and as long as your locks didn’t burn up you’d have a curly “permanent wave” in the end. It looks like some kind of bizarre torture device and reminds us that with vanity comes a price.

Take a tour of the equipment buildings and inside there it’s tools of the trade for those who worked land (so nearly everyone in the early days). There’s old tractors and machinery of every description, things of metal and wood and way too much to see in one pass.

There’s old office machinery, home entertainment equipment and of particular interest to us (naturally), a vintage camera display. Target sighted: it’s old Kodaks and Anscos! We’re given special permission to use any we wished to shoot a film companion piece that once done (soon), will be put into a binder beside the very cameras that captured them. How awesome is that?

Admittedly, we were a little out of our element here so the results were all over the map, but truth is that’s the stuff of memories. How interesting that after sitting for so long these old rigs were once again put to work, perhaps one last time. A couple were found to have film inside, exposed long ago and prints from these will also be displayed. We’ll also try and track down the who and when so there’s some backstory and context too.

Our cameras this day included a Kodak Tourist, an Adox from Germany and finally a simple Tower Box Camera (also made in Germany) and all date from the 1950s. Tower came from the Sears’ Company, their house brand, and strangely this camera has no front lens element. Instead it resides behind the shutter, a quirky arrangement for sure.

Before Tesla, there’s was an EVA Metro, a converted Renault 12 of the 1970s with a handful made but few surviving today. This unremarkable looking little car, here in this small town museum, was cutting edge for the time and doing the green thing before it was cool.

At every turn it’s vintage machinery and this has us in our element (except when the film camera’s are brought out – then we loose “focus”). We’ve much love for old metal, anything forged, cast or machined.

On Patzer Way take in an entire historic village. The general store sold everything and this example came from the nearby hamlet of Michichi and dates from 1913. In business until the mid-1960s it sat empty for a time before being moved here. Now it’s well stocked and looking open for business. Some laundry bluing, a box of ten penny nails and a bottle of Dr Jones’ Bitters please – grandma’s got the rheumatis.

There’s the old hospital from Hanna that only saw use for a few years before before demand outstripped capacity and a new building constructed to replace it. Over the years it also functioned an overflow school, an apartment building and later single residence before making its way here. Old hospitals are creepy! Convince us otherwise. By the way, the museum has a handy pamphlet speaking on the history of each building in more detail.

We’re at the Hanna Pioneer Village & Museum.

You can always find us down by the tracks. The station on the grounds once sat in nearby Pollockville and dates from 1920. Closed around 1950, it sat empty for a good strectch before being brought to the museum in the 1960s.

Like all the buildings here, it’s been nicely done up and appears as a typical railway station of the era. Out front there an old caboose, weathered and full of character, that completes the scene and together it takes little effort to imagine yourself back in time. We’re in (you name any prairie town) circa 1920 and the train’s arrived bringing in new settlers, those new going-to-church clothes you ordered from Eaton’s and general news of world. Trains once meant prosperity and were the main connection to the outside.

Looking up we’re reminded how much wind played a part in farming in the old days. These windmills beside the station were usually used to pump water but in a pinch could be put to other uses too like powering machinery or for making electricity.

St Mary’s Lutheran Church goes back to the 1910s and last used in the 1960s. Once sitting out on a rural road near the village of Delia, it’s been at the museum for close to fifty years. So it’s been here at the Hanna Pioneer Village as long as it was in service. It’s simple in form and humble in every way, so typical of the era and area.

The little one room school was once common out in the country. Most had an enrolment counted on a hand or two and they taught every grade with many students often from the same family. There were thousands of them once. Now most rural kids are bused into the nearest good sized town but then, you walked to school.

The telephone exchange is from the late 1920s and where the local switchboard operator worked from. You needed them to complete a call and might just hear a little local gossip from them while waiting for the routing to be completed. Functioning into 1960, later a local health unit took it over before coming here. We come across these old Alberta Government Telephone exchanges all the time and they’re easily spotted with each looking much as this one.

The 1912 Ranch House is a tour highlight and come see how modestly people lived at the time. Cramped space and amenities few, both were very much norms for the day during the homestead era. But they always had love to fill the cracks and put food on the table, as we’ve been told often by old timers. We all live like kings in comparison. This building once stood a bit east of Hanna and has been here for half a century.

There’s many other building and artifacts on the street and and we’ve barely even touched on the inside exhibits, so come see for yourself and get to know it better. We’re running out of space here!

Hanna Alberta is in the Special Areas and has a population of two and a half thousand. A railway town once, Canadian National left a few years back Founded in the 1910s, we’re regular visitors and have explored the town and area extensively. Oh, and we’ll be back!

Look up & look down, there’s lots to take in.

Writing this piece inspired us to to take a closer look at the film proofs from the old camera shoot at the museum and they look pretty promising. Initial thoughts: we should learn to use focus better and our exposure calculations we’re sometimes wildly off. Then we’re made to recall mechanical issues previously forgotten, with jammed advance mechanisms and light leaks both coming into play too. That’s how it goes and if anything makes the images all that more memorable. We working on making the binder up as we speak.

*We understand the Hanna Pioneer Village & Museum should be welcoming visitors in 2021 after being closed for over a year. Check with the venue to know more (link below). Entry is by donation and be sure and tell them we sent you.

Here’s some useful search queries if want to know more about our subject: Hanna Pioneer Village and Museum and Hanna Alberta Roundhouse another museum attraction in town (see: Hanna Roundhouse Revisited).

Till next time friends, keep being curious.

They’re saying…

“Great tidbits of history, all in our own backyard!” David W Brandenburg.

Museums of all kinds…
Canadian Civil Defence Museum’s Alsask Dome – A chilling Cold War relic.
Wandering the Alberta Railway Museum – Trains, trains and more trains!
Museum Tour: Viking Alberta – Small town museums rock!

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date of Adventure: July, 2020.
Location(s): Hanna, AB.
Article references and thanks: The fine folks at the Hanna Pioneer Village and Museum, especially Calista who tolerated our shenanigans with patience and a smile.
The museum will be happy to have you visit and please tell them we sent you.

A prairie home.

They sold everything at the general store.

The student view.

Old hospitals = creepy.

Everyone looks so prim and proper.

The country church.

You’ll find us at the train station.

“The Sun.”

Machines of the past.

Before Tesla, it’s was this humble little car.

Museum artifacts put to work.

When hood ornaments we’re thing.

Playing all the popular hits.

Forever noon.

The wall of calendars.

Michichi’s General Store.

The hospital is from 1918.

Trains once meant prosperity.

Wind was put to work at the farm.

There’s lots of old metal to see.

The builder’s plate off an old road roller.

Much love for vintage machinery.

Down by the tracks.

This could be any prairie town.

Shooting film is always an adventure.

Steady…steady…click!

Once the telephone exchange.

Old, weathered and full of character.

Someone’s home at the 1912 ranch house.

A preview showing the film proofs.